The Lady In Green
by Leiamoody of Ysonesse
Summary: Padme reflects upon her life, and waits for the day of redemption. (This story contains an AU Padme that doesn't die in childbirth).


The Lady In Green

Down below, the novitiates were out in the courtyard. With their hair unbound by veils and their outer robes cast aside, the young girls shouted, giggled, hopped about on shapes painted into the cobblestones playing games from olden times. They were still innocent, not yet poisoned by the horrors and travesties of the galaxy and its hidden dark ghosts. The toxic awareness of adulthood had not yet reached out with icy midnight fingers to slowly take the fresh essence of their shining souls away. Not yet, not yet.

High above the vivid lights of life darting about in the courtyard, standing alone on the balcony wrapped in her deep green cloak, was the lady. Unlike the novice priestesses below her, she was no longer young. She was beyond all childish notions, and had been so for days upon days, years upon years. No longer did she believe in faith, hope, happiness, or life. And she most certainly did not believe in love. No, that was an emotion foreign to her...the woman who had once known love was a resident of another land and another time, so unfamiliar to her now. Although that young woman shared the same name as her present self...but that young woman was stupid and foolish, and had let herself fall in love with a monster.

It was better for those who needed to know that she was dead. In a sense, that day when the revelation came truly killed her. Grabbed her heart and dug black fingers into the veins, pulling her blood and essence out of her body. The soul was gone forever, taken by him...the one who was supposed to be her beloved.

He had cursed her to this fate. Every day she could still arise from her bed and go out into the world meant that she was condemned to her memories, and trapped in this forbidding temple. And this all came about because of one mistaken choice that ended her life in all ways except one.

Padme Amidala Naberrie Skywalker was dead...and yet she still lived.

The lady drew her hood up to hide her face from the late afternoon sun.

_When Obi-Wan and Bail had come to her apartment on that day many years ago, she had refused to believe them. Such horrible untruths they poured into her mind…Anakin had killed younglings? He had joined with Palpatine? Her Anakin?_

"_No!" Her heart would not feel those words…evil falsehoods…lies! Anakin wasn't a murderer! Never once had he raised his hand in anger…but no…here was another untruth. On that night when he found his mother, he had killed the Tusken Raiders. But that had been an accident, one terrible moment born from the flames of grief. Surely that was different from murder._

"_You're wrong, Obi-Wan. He couldn't…" _

_When Bail came forward to intercede, she had pulled back. "I will not let you fill my head with lies." Then she had pleaded with her oldest friend in the Senate. "Tell him to stop saying such things!" She had clasped his hands and wept. Surely he did not believe any of this!_

_But then he told her about the security hologram, the one from the Temple. In the recording, many Jedi were murdered by Anakin. His will had become poisonous and dark…twisted…_

_Her love had become a Sith Lord?_

"_Anakin is gone?" Her question was the last thing she remembered clearly. There were dim images of packing clothes, rushing to the spaceport, and fleeing Coruscant in Bail's ship, then coming here to this forsaken planet pushed outwards to the farthest tip of the galaxy. But those visions only came to her in dreams, and even then were fleeting and blurry._

_For days she had retreated into herself, still refusing to face the truth. She kept to a cabin, locked away from those who wanted her to believe what she did not want to acknowledge. She barely slept, tormented by certain random images from the days leading up that awful revelation._

Just hours before the universe twisted inwards and imploded, they were separated by a distance far greater than something physical. Anakin had suddenly draped a shroud of darkness around himself. Both his heart and mind were truly hidden from her. But then, he had always been closed off, even to her. And she in turn had kept much from him. So much of their brief life together had rested upon deception. It had started with their wedding, and continued. Lie built upon lie. Clandestine and momentary meetings done in secret locations, and only with a trusted few knowing who slept in her bedchamber on those nights.

Or so she had thought.

Yoda had always known the true nature of their relationship. Bail had also known…though she had finally confided this to him one evening, soon after Anakin had been sent once more into the Wars. But for the old Jedi Master to know…

"_Why didn't you stop him?"_ Soon after her children were born, she had asked the old creature this most necessary question. Yoda had the knowledge of their marriage all along. But he had stood by and let Anakin tear himself apart…and destroy himself in the end.

No one helped him. They all turned their backs…on her, on Anakin, on the Republic. Choosing instead to shut themselves away in their shining towers, locking out the cries of the citizens. That made them accessories to murder, did it not?

But on that day, in the early morning hours, long before the horrors of the later evening were to take place, she had chosen to wear her robe of green and gold…the colors of Naboo in the high autumn, when everything alive merged with the burnished hues of the waning season. She had picked this outfit simply on a momentary whim. One glance out of the corner of her eye, and it caught her attention. So she decided to wear it that day, for the meeting with her colleagues. As if she knew a change was coming...a season of light, life, and love was passing into a black winter. It was a woeful autumn before the dark season, with no chance for a harvest. Nothing had grown in the universe since those days. Everything had withered and died.

The lady wiped away a tear. That was another lie, but one she had constructed to keep her heart intact.

It had been Bail who finally got through to her on that day of the revelation. When he said that he too had seen the security hologram, it was only then that she could ever so slowly start to believe that her husband was no longer the man, no longer the child, she had known.

After this, she knew it was no longer safe to remain on Coruscant. Yoda knew of her pregnancy, and realized her children might be the only salvation left. The Chosen One had fallen, but his offspring were yet untouched. Perhaps they were strong enough in the Light to pull their father out from the depths. Bringing him back would finally bring the balance promised by the ancient prophecy.

But that day had yet to come. Many years had passed. Many atrocities had taken place among the worlds she once had known in the days of peace. Even here on this remote sanctuary world, she heard about the obliteration of Alderaan. She had been terrified for weeks that among those lost in the cataclysm was her daughter…but the careless chatter of young maidens in the kitchens had put her heart to ease on that matter. Leia was safe, and Luke had finally found his sister. They were now part of the rebellious effort her younger self had once long ago refused to be part of.

The lady in her green cloak sighed. Until the day of redemption came to pass, she would remain hidden from the galaxy. Hidden from the reaches of the twisted man she once knew as her husband. And hidden from her children. She must remain a prisoner here, if only to keep her safe.

The lady turned her back to the sun and the life below her, and headed inside.


End file.
